Thurgoland (, ) is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

in the

Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley The Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley is a metropolitan borough in South Yorkshire, England; the main settlement is Barnsley and other notable towns include Wombwell, Worsbrough, Penistone and Hoyland. The borough is bisected by the M1 mo ...

South Yorkshire South Yorkshire is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the Yorkshire and the Humber region of England. It borders North Yorkshire and West Yorkshire to the north, the East Riding of Yorkshire to the north-east, Lincolnshire ...

, England, on the

A629 road The A629 road is an intra-Yorkshire road that runs from Skipton to Rotherham through Keighley, Halifax, Huddersfield and Chapeltown in Yorkshire, England. The road runs through North, West and South Yorkshire, but before 1974, the entire leng ...

. According to the 2001 census the parish had a population of 1,801, increasing to 1,969 at the 2011 Census.

Buildings

The village has one primary school, and Holy Trinity Church, Thurgoland (Church of England), built in 1870. There are three public houses: The Horse & Jockey, The Green Dragon and The Bridge Inn. There are several listed buildings on Huthwaite Lane, including Huthwaite Hall (1748) designed by John Carr. There is a recreational ground at the centre of the village, by the village hall and the youth centre. Thurgoland Junior School is ranked second in the local league table.

History

The earliest known written record of Thurgoland is in the

Domesday Book Domesday Book ( ; the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book") is a manuscript record of the Great Survey of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...

of 1086, in which it is referred to as ''Turgesland''. The name is of

Old Norse Old Norse, also referred to as Old Nordic or Old Scandinavian, was a stage of development of North Germanic languages, North Germanic dialects before their final divergence into separate Nordic languages. Old Norse was spoken by inhabitants ...

origin and may mean 'Cultivated land of a man called Thorgeirr'. Other sources claim derivation from the Anglian ‘The fee farm in the Ga of Thor’ – meaning the rented farm on the land named in honour of the god

Thor Thor (from ) is a prominent list of thunder gods, god in Germanic paganism. In Norse mythology, he is a hammer-wielding æsir, god associated with lightning, thunder, storms, sacred trees and groves in Germanic paganism and mythology, sacred g ...

. In the 1840s the

Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway The Sheffield, Ashton-under-Lyne and Manchester Railway was an early British railway company which opened in stages between 1841 and 1845 between Sheffield and Manchester via Ashton-under-Lyne. The Peak District formed a formidable barrier, and ...

was built running past the village. A

station Station may refer to: Agriculture * Station (Australian agriculture), a large Australian landholding used for livestock production * Station (New Zealand agriculture), a large New Zealand farm used for grazing by sheep and cattle ** Cattle statio ...

was opened at Thurgoland in December 1845, but closed 11 months later. The two-mile-long Thurgoland Coal Branch opened on 24 November 1847 to serve the nearby Stanhope Silkstone Main Colliery. Thurgoland was a centre for

wire drawing Wire drawing is a metalworking process used to reduce the cross-section of a wire by pulling the wire through one or more dies. There are many applications for wire drawing, including electrical wiring, cables, tension-loaded structural compone ...

mills. There were three wire mills in the parish: Old Wire Mill is thought to date from 1624, New Wire Mill was built around 1717, and Thurgoland Tilt Mill was operating in the 19th century.

Governance

Thurgoland is a civil parish and local issues are governed by a parish council, one of 17 such councils in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley. It is in the

Penistone East Ward Penistone ( ) is a market town and civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, which had a population of 13,270 at the 2021 census. Historically in the West Riding of Yorkshire, it is west of Barnsley, n ...

of the Borough, which is represented on the Borough Council by John Wilson, Robert Barnard, and Paul Hand-Davis, all members of the Conservative Party. This ward became part of the new

Penistone and Stocksbridge Penistone and Stocksbridge is a Constituencies of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, constituency in South Yorkshire represented in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom, House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, UK Par ...

parliamentary constituency in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

in 2010 and is currently represented by Labour MP

Marie Tidball Marie Tidball is a British Labour politician and disability rights campaigner, who has been the Member of Parliament for Penistone and Stocksbridge since 2024. Early life She was born with a congenital disability which affects all four limb ...

Geography

Thurgoland is located on the north side of the River Don, about south west of the town of Barnsley and north west of

Sheffield City Centre Sheffield City Centre (referred to locally as simply Town) is a district of the Sheffield, City of Sheffield and is covered partly by the City ward, Sheffield, City ward of the City of Sheffield. It includes the area that is within a radius of ...

. The village sits on a hill overlooking a bend in the river at about above

mean sea level A mean is a quantity representing the "center" of a collection of numbers and is intermediate to the extreme values of the set of numbers. There are several kinds of means (or "measures of central tendency") in mathematics, especially in statist ...

Demography

At the time of the 2011 Census the population of Thurgoland civil parish was 1,969 people. The ethnic mix was 98.2% white (

White British White British is an ethnicity classification used for the White population identifying as English, Scottish, Welsh, Cornish, Northern Irish, or British in the United Kingdom Census. In the 2011 census, the White British population was 49 ...

White Irish White Irish is an ethnicity classification used in the census in the United Kingdom for England, Scotland and Wales. In the 2021 census, the White Irish population was 564,342 or 0.9% of Great Britain's total population. This was a slight fa ...

, or White Other), 0.4% Asian, 0.2% Black, Caribbean and 0.2% other. Below is a table outlining population change of the parish since 1911.

Transport

The main road transport route through Thurgoland is the A629. The closest motorway route is the

M1 motorway The M1 motorway connects London to Leeds, where it joins the A1(M) motorway, A1(M) near Aberford, to connect to Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle. It was the first inter-urban motorway to be completed in the UK; the first motorway in the count ...

, which passes to the east of the village. South Pennine Community Transport operates bus routes through the village, linking it to Barnsley, Penistone, and Sheffield, as well as the surrounding villages. The closest mainline railway stations are at

Penistone Penistone ( ) is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley, South Yorkshire, England, which had a population of 13,270 at the 2021 census. Historic counties of England, Historically in ...

and

Silkstone Common Silkstone Common is a village in the Barnsley (borough), metropolitan borough of Barnsley in South Yorkshire, England. It is to the south of Silkstone. History One of the most notable events in the history of the village was the Huskar Collier ...

Notable people

Thomas Brooks Thomas, Thom, Tom, or Tommy Brooks may refer to: Politics and religion * Thomas Brooks (Puritan) (1608–1680), Puritan minister and author * Thomas Brooks, American minister after whom Brookfield, Connecticut, was named * Thomas Brooks, 1st Baron ...

MBE, JP (1880–1958), a British coal miner, politician, MP and

spiritualist Spiritualism may refer to: * Spiritual church movement, a group of Spiritualist churches and denominations historically based in the African-American community * Spiritualism (beliefs), a metaphysical belief that the world is made up of at least ...

* Lieutenant Commander

Eugene Esmonde Lieutenant Commander Eugene Esmonde, (1 March 1909 – 12 February 1942) was a distinguished Irish pilot in the Fleet Air Arm who was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy awarde ...

, VC, DSO (1909–1942), a distinguished Irish pilot in the

Fleet Air Arm The Fleet Air Arm (FAA) is the naval aviation component of the United Kingdom's Royal Navy (RN). The FAA is one of five :Fighting Arms of the Royal Navy, RN fighting arms. it is a primarily helicopter force, though also operating the Lockhee ...

who was posthumously awarded the

Victoria Cross The Victoria Cross (VC) is the highest and most prestigious decoration of the Orders, decorations, and medals of the United Kingdom, British decorations system. It is awarded for valour "in the presence of the enemy" to members of the British ...

(VC)

References and notes

External links

{{authority control Villages in South Yorkshire Civil parishes in South Yorkshire Geography of the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley Towns and villages of the Peak District